


with the dark accidents of strange identity

by amazingspaceship



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Ancestors, F/F, Kismesissitude
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-12 15:54:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19948861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amazingspaceship/pseuds/amazingspaceship
Summary: Eight rumors about the Marquise Spinneret Mindfang.





	with the dark accidents of strange identity

_1 - The Marquise had a tongue of pure silver, commissioned after her original one was severed. They say that with it, her words could cut as sharp as any knife, and her lies were twice as sweet._

It is nearing dawn when she mounts the E%ecutor’s front stoop.

She must be quite the sight, by this point: the unflappable Spinneret Mindfang, pale as a ghost, unsteady on her feet, blood dribbling from her open mouth. What’s left of her coat is torn and stained to hell and back, and her boots are caked in blood. Her left hand is still clenched over the useless remains of her tongue, blood soaking into the chinks of her prosthetic. If only the Orphaner could see her now! He’d probably have a laughing fit.

Darkleer answers on the third knock.

“Do you have any idea what time—” he starts, and suddenly she finds she has no patience for this. One snap of her fingers and his mind is hers. She tells him to carry her into his operating room, and she doesn’t relinquish control until she’s strapped to a table and shot full of painkillers, flying higher than the man on the moon.

“...I wish you would refrain from doing that,” Darkleer says, once he’s regained his senses. “It is highly unpleasant, not to mention extremely rude, and—”

She gives him a look that says _my patience is wearing thin_ , and he wisely decides to take the hint.

“The cut was very clean,” he says, after a lengthy examination. She feels him inspect the stump of her tongue, although thanks to the drugs she feels nothing more than a slight tingling sensation. “I won’t presume to ask who did this, although one does hear many... interesting rumors about your profession. In any case, it should be simple enough to fit you for a prosthetic. Perhaps a nice blue to imitate—” 

“ _Nghhh_ ,” she croaks, grabbing his arm. She can’t talk, and certainly won’t stoop to mimicry, so she writes with her blood: _Silver. M8ke it silver._

“...Certainly,” Darkleer says. “That can be arranged. Excuse me a moment.”

Mindfang watches through half-lidded eyes as he bustles off, no doubt to prepare her a new tongue. Darkleer is just as rude as ever. As distasteful as his company is, though, he is at least discreet, even if said discretion is borne from isolation rather than loyalty. She’d prefer not to rely so heavily on his services, but he is the only prosthetist under her thumb. And he hasn’t outlived his usefulness quite yet.

Left to her own devices, her thoughts turn to revenge. The Gamblignant Court may be a cowardly bunch of putrescent wigglers, more at home behind a desk than on the open ocean, but they certainly know how to punish lying. She’ll have to be careful in taking them down—perhaps one at a time, carefully, to discourage collective resistance. They’ve certainly outlived their usefulness, and she has no need for a governing body that doesn’t entirely suit her.

Unexpectedly, she smiles. It has been a long time since she last dismantled a governing body. It will be a refreshing change of pace. 

Revenge is the sweetest of therapies, after all.

* * *

_2 - She never fought fairly if she could help it._

Mindfang had learned early on in her career that the ocean floor was littered with trolls who prescribed to such notions as “honor” and “integrity.” Fairness was a nice dream _in theory_ , but if you practiced it in reality you were a fool, or a corpse, or both. And there was no room in Mindfang’s crew for fools.

The legislacerator standing before her is no fool, but she has certainly miscalculated. Her first mistake, of course, was not culling Mindfang immediately. After Redglare’s (very public) hanging, the Legislaceration had issued a new command: gamblignants were to be executed on sight, without a trial. And Mindfang was priority number one.

“But,” says the legislacerator, “I won’t fight an unarmed woman.” Mindfang has heard of this one—Neophyte Iopara has made quite a splash in the criminal world recently, pun intended. “Go on, take it. I promise it’s not a trick.”

Mindfang takes the proffered rapier and stands, somewhat unsteadily. Her head still smarts from the psychic suppressants, which had been stealthily slipped into her evening coffee. Damn, but this one was _clever_. But not clever enough.

“It’s only fair, don’t you think?” the legislacerator says, bringing the tip of her rapier up to touch Mindfang’s. “Face to face, blade to—“

“Spare me,” Mindfang says, lunging forward.

Not with the rapier, but with her left arm—wrapping synthetic metal fingers around Iopara’s blade, and then _twisting_ until the steel snaps in two.

Iopara, to her credit, reacts quickly, kicking Mindfang hard in the stomach and leaping backward to gain some distance. But there’s only one way such a fight can go when one party is in possession of a blade and the other is not. 

“An admirable attempt,” Mindfang says, drawing closer. “But I’m afraid that this is checkmate.”

* * *

_3 - She once dueled the Demoness and won._

The trick to winning fights, Mindfang always found, lay in knowing your opponent’s weak spot. That was the key. Every troll had at least one, and victory was almost always assured if you knew precisely what it was. Find the chink in their armor and _twist_ : That’s how battles were won.

The Handmaid’s weak spot, as it turns out, is six bottles of pillaged wine and an entire case of imported chocolates. Afterward, they retreat to Mindfang’s cabin for an hour of “fighting,” during which she discovers a great many facts about the Handmaid. For one thing, precisely how much stamina she has.

It is during this long hour that they spend together, learning every curve and angle of one another, that the Handmaid tells her a secret.

“This universe has an expiration date,” she says, lighting a cigarette. The Handmaid is perhaps the most imposing troll Mindfang has ever met (second to herself, of course). She moves like a predator, ready to strike—slowly and purposefully, measuring every move before she takes it. ”It won’t be today, it won’t be tomorrow—it might not even be in your lifetime. But it will come.”

“More wine, I think,” says Mindfang, pouring herself a generous amount. “I’m inclined to believe you, although you’re being awfully cryptic. I don’t suppose there’s any way to stop it?”

The Handmaid laughs. “Of course not. Technically, it’s already happened. You just haven’t caught up yet.”

“Interesting. May I ask what will trigger the end?”

The Handmaid smiles, and in her eyes Mindfang can see the great yawning void of entropy. “Your descendant will orchestrate the birth of a demigod,” she says, “and an exile will shoot the universe in the heart.”

And then she is gone. There is no fanfare, no fuss—one moment she is sitting primly on the edge of Mindfang’s recuperacoon, and the next moment there is just empty space. 

Mindfang takes a long sip of wine. Not the worst fling she’s ever had, all things considered.

* * *

_4 - She once stole a kiss from the Empress herself; and, despite her impudence, the Empress left her live._

Over the past several sweeps Mindfang has enjoyed a somewhat unique position in the aristocratic topography of the Empire. Her kismesissitude with the Orphaner earns her a legitimate seat among Alternian high society—and there is absolutely nothing funnier than dining next to the same highbloods she robbed the previous afternoon. But if her oracle is correct (and it is never wrong) then this will soon change. For what reason, she cannot begin to guess, but she is happy to make the most of her unearned nobility in the meantime.

Tonight she is attending a ball, thrown by some highblooded governor she has never heard of. Most of the Empire’s upper crust will be in there; including, it is rumored, the Empress herself.

When she arrives, the dance floor is filled to the brim with highbloods. It seems that the whole of Alternia’s government is here: Mindfang spies the hulking form of the Grand Highblood, the hunched silhouette of the Magistragedy, the leering face of Orphaner Dualscar. Lowblooded servants scurry underfoot, serving finger-foods on silver platters.

Mindfang skirts the dancefloor. Being on land feels strange. She misses the rock and sway of the ship underneath her feet, the taste of salt on her tongue, and the sound of gulls in the distance. The highblood’s mansion is gilded and grand, and instead of mingling she busies herself calculating the amount of gold she could get for each fixture. She could hawk the smaller pieces, easy, and she knows a good fence for the chandelier.

“Excuse me,” says a voice at her shoulder, “cod I have this dance?” Mindfang turns, a refusal already on her lips, and oh god it’s Her Imperious Condescension.

Wordlessly, Mindfang nods, just as the band strikes up a waltz. You don’t refuse the Empress.

Heads turn as they weave across the dancefloor. The Empress, of course, leads. Mindfang can already hear the whispers breaking out in their wake: _is she really_ ’s and _how dare she_ ’s follow them across the room. When they pass Dualscar, Mindfang sees that his face is purple with rage.

“So,” says the Empress, breaking the silence between them. “I pike your dress.”

“I am honored, Empress,” Mindfang says. “Truly, I am humbled by—”

“Oh shell, don’t give me that.” The Empress frowns, suddenly cross. “It’s always the same with you highbloods: ‘I’m not worthy’ this and ‘I prostrate myself before you’ that. Would it krill y’all to shoal a little bite now and again?”

Oh, what the hell. Time to be brave. “These aristocrats, show any bite? You might as well ask a shark to sprout wings.”

“HA!” The Empress has a bark of a laugh, and it puts Mindfang in the mind of the sea lion lusii that sometimes frequent harbors. “Whale, you’re right aboat that. Spineless, the lot of ‘em. But _you,_ ” and here the Empress leans forward, “ _you’re_ different. I can tell.”

Mindfang raises an eyebrow. “Different how?”

They turn, spin, move; both of them are dancing on autopilot. “I saw you lookin’ around earlier. You were seeing what you cod rob, right? No, don’t deny it. I know a thief when I see one.”

“Guilty as charged, I’m afraid.”

“See, I like that. You and me, we ain’t so different.” The music swells, and the Empress’ face breaks out into a wide grin. “We both take what we want.”

Then the Empress pulls Mindfang into a dip, leans down, and kisses her.

Time stops. The ruler of all trollkind tastes like saltwater and cherries, and her lips are impossibly soft. Mindfang has had many black kisses, but this one is truly red—red as the moon, red as flame, red as the Empress’ lipstick. There is a collective gasp from the assembled gentry. Somewhere, a glass shatters.

“Don’t look now,” Mindfang says, into the Empress’ mouth, “but I think we have an audience. 

That, finally, breaks the spell. The Empress pulls away, grinning. “You’re cute,” she says, “but you fuckin’ _suck_ at kissing.”

* * *

_5 - She never told anyone her true name. She was known solely as Mindfang until the day that she died._

“Aranea,” croaks the lowblood, half-delirious with pain, and that gives her pause.

The passengers that they’ve captured are a motley crew, and a damned difficulty to subdue with such a powerful psionic in their midst. Normally, she’d give the order to throw them overboard and be done with it, but that name. _That_ _name_.

Troll names are not assigned. They are _known_ , inherently, as one knows their own voice and heart and blood. And Mindfang hasn’t answered to Aranea in a very, very long time.

“Put the others in the brig,” she says, “and bring the mutant to my chambers.”

Once in her cabin, Mindfang roots through her desk until she finds a bottle of wine; some rummaging in her sylladex produces two dusty wine glasses. She sets them on the table and pours wine into both.

Then she opens the secret compartment in her desk, careful not to trigger the tripwire, and pulls out a small bottle. The liquid inside is glassy and colorless—she dribbles a few drops into the other wine glass, pockets the bottle, and sits back to wait.

There’s a knock at the door. Mindfang calls “Come in,” and two crewmembers drag the lowblood inside.

He’s been beaten to hell and back, his mutant blood on full display, and yet he still has the gumption to snarl at her through a tangle of matted hair. He wears a tattered, black cloak, notably free of a caste sign. He can’t be much older than nine sweeps.

And yet something about him feels familiar.

“Welcome aboard the _Arachnid’s Grip_ , she says, smiling widely. “Won’t you sit down? Have a drink?” She gives an airy wave to the two crew members, and they bow and take their leave.

The lowblood stares at her, suspicion written all over his face. “Go ahead,” Mindfgang says. “Take a sip! I’m sure you’ve been dying for some creature comforts… the ship we found you on wasn’t exactly a pleasure cruise, if I recall.”

“...Y-you must think I’m an idiot,” the boy says to her.

Mindfang hides her smile behind her wine glass. “Of course not.”

“Shut up,” he says. “What is this, poison? Something w-worse?” There is a slight stutter to his voice, as he speaks. “If, If you thought you could threaten me, by bringing me here and serving me a spiked glass of wine, I think you’ll be disappointed!”

“Child,” Mindfang says, “if I wanted to threaten you, I would simply start hacking off body parts. Not yours, of course: those of your compatriots in my brig.” He stiffens, and she smirks. “As it happens, your drink _is_ spiked. But not with poison.” And she reaches out, snaps her fingers, and _slips easily into his mind._

_Immediately, his body goes slack; the tension in his body unwinding, his eyelids beginning to droop. This would have been much, much easier if he’d tried the wine—the drug would have him more susceptible to psychic influence—but, alas, it looks like she’ll be doing things the hard way._

_A pity. Mind-reading is a trickier prospect than mind control, after all._

_The expanse of his mind lies before her, a smooth and unblemished ocean. Thoughts float to the surface—fear for his mother, anger at their captor, anxiety over is own fate. His name is Kankri Vantas. He was born, signless and shivering, only eight sweeps ago. He would have been culled if not for the interference of his mother, the jadeblooded prisoner, who raised him to adulthood and taught him the ways of the world._

_And there is such a_ rage _in him. He suppresses it, she can tell, and yet it simmers just below the surface. His mind, with the right catalyst, could easily become a boiling sea. A show like that would be awfully entertaining to watch._

_Mindfang delves deeper, deeper, and deeper still, until the surface of his mind vanishes and she floats alone and untethered in his subconscious. Here, thoughts are less coherent. They are mostly impressions or vague concepts. Occasionally, snatches of sound—music, voices. The ghostly residue of forgotten memories._

_Aranea, he called her. An old name, an old life. Left behind her, now, along with many other things. But he must have learned it from somewhere._

_As if called, a memory rises in front of her. A wispy thing, maybe, but clear and whole. He is standing atop a gigantic lilypad, looking out onto an impossible, crackling sky. The air is filled with static. He is at ease: Megido has activated the scratch, and soon they will be unmade._

_He turns to survey them all, one final time. There are twelve of them, himself and his cohorts, exhausted from three sweeps spent existing in a broken world. He notices that Meenah and Aranea are deep in a conversation. They’re… arguing about something? He can’t make it out. Meenah is grinning broadly, pulling something out of her sylladex. It is a round object, roughly the size of her head, and she gives it a little shake and_

_and_

_and Mindfang_ jolts backward onto the cabin floor, screaming, her mind afire with a flame the size of a universe.

Several things happen at once.

Her crew bursts in, weapons drawn. Her first mate she takes in the scene, expertly, and goes for the mutant’s throat. That’s the exact moment that the floor explodes—the psionic rises, buoyed by crackling arcs of red and blue, and shards of splintered wood suddenly become sharpened projectiles. Then oliveblood and the jadeblood clamber up behind him, grab the unconscious Vantas, and bolt for the open door.

By the time Mindfang is able to collect herself, they are long gone. A deckhand, bloody with splinters, gives her the report. They took a lifeboat and ran, crippling their rudder as they made their escape. The _Arachnid’s Grip_ will have to limp back to harbor, and she’ll most likely need major repairs.

The Deckhand leaves. Time passes. Mindfang sits, quiet, and stares out the window. She’s forgone a glass, this time, and is drinking straight from the bottle. Her hands tremble a little as she raises it to her lips.

What she had seen in his mind was real. There was no doubt about that.

Perhaps she should keep an eye on the mutant. But, preferably, from a distance. 

_(She will be reminded of him, sweeps later, when news arrives of an executed heretic: she will visit the site of his death, and touch the chains they bound him in, and remember a life she never led.)_

* * *

_6 - Though the Marquise took many lovers, she never filled a quadrant. She cared nothing for hate or pity; her shriveled heart was reserved solely for gold._

The idealized vision of an Alternian legislacerator, according to popular culture, is tall and imposing; as firm and solid as a rock, with a strength suitable for holding up the weight of the law. She possesses a voice that thunders, a voice that booms confidently through the courtblock, a voice that suits one for whom her every word is law.

Neophyte Redglare is none of these things. She is short and thin, with sharp elbows and sharper teeth, and a voice that doesn’t thunder so much as crackle. No sensible troll would be scared of her. Yet there is a raging fire inside of her: it burns brightly, so brightly, and when she pins Mindfang to the holding cell bars it’s like that fire is filling them both up, up, up, until passion explodes and bubbles over into a kiss.

It’s messy, and harsh, and the best black kiss Mindfang’s ever had. She bites Redglare’s lip until she tastes blood, and Redglare growls low and deep into her mouth. They tumble over onto the ground—Redglare bangs her knee and Mindfang a horn, but the pain hardly registers. The world has narrowed to the two of them, and that’s all that really matters.

Mindfang has had flings before—Dualscar springs to mind, the crusty old barnacle—passing fancies, with no real feeling behind them. But Redglare is different. She is a whirling blade, and a force of nature, and a self-righteous zealot all in one.

She is a riptide. And, against her better judgement, Mindfang in being pulled in. 

In an hour Mindfang will make her daring escape from the legislacerator outpost, and the chase will begin anew. But here, now, in a scant moment of respite, she indulges herself in desire. And if she’s sporting a few hickeys afterward, well, who would dare to comment?

* * *

_7 - They say she could predict the future._

The cue ball hits the water with the barest hint of a splash, and sinks like a stone.

Mindfang leans on the starboard railing of the _Arachnid’s Grip_ , staring out at the waves. Everything feels light and fuzzy. Moonlight catches on the surface of the waves, though much of it is shadowed by the hulk of the of her ship. She’s just sober enough to realize how drunk she is, but not sober enough to regret it.

“You dropped it,” A voice says, from behind her. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

She turns. Ah, and here’s the problem himself—Rufioh Nitram, her newest crew member, lanky and fresh-faced and looking for all the world like he’s just stumbled out of a wiggler’s bedtime story. He’s a little drunk too; he must be, or else he wouldn’t dare speak to her in such a way. 

“Are you surprised?” she says. “I can recognize an addiction when I see it. I’m better off without him.”

“Him?”

“Never you mind.” She takes another swig. The wine tonight tastes like piss, but it was the only bottle left in the hold. “I don’t need it. I never did.”

“But you loved that thing, I thought. You carried it everywhere.”

“I did, for a time.” Nitram is young. He wouldn't understand. “The good doctor told me plenty of things, and they all came true. But I’m old and tired, and my bones ache. I’ve grown weary of handy prophets.”

“I think I get it.” He slides up next to her and leans with his back to the railing, staring up at the _Grip’s_ furled sails. “It’s no good knowing too much of the future, right? Otherwise you would spend so much time trying to act in accordance with the future that you’d never decide anything for yourself.”

Mindfang takes a moment to study him. He will make a great leader someday—the greatest revolutionary Alternia has ever seen. She could learn to pity him, given time. To stand by as he changes the course of Alternian history. But is that what she really wants? Or is that just what the cue ball has told her?

There is a decision, here, she can feel it. A path diverging. Perhaps she will kill him now, and live the rest of her life in a collapsing universe. Or perhaps she’ll finish her bottle of wine, retrieve the cue ball, and follow the troll who will kill her.

In the end, it’s not really much of a choice. She chooses relevancy.

“Nitram,” she says, carefully. “Have you ever thought about revolution?”

* * *

_8 - The Marquise had no descendants. Her legacy began, and ended, with her._

Vriska Serket is born one cold night in the eighth dim season. She weighs six and a half pounds at birth, and is roughly eighteen inches long from horn tip to rear.

The jadebloods find her outside the caverns, crawling around an impact crater with eleven other trolls. They tag her and process her anyway, assuming (incorrectly) that she is just a normal grub. Her horns may look familiar to any jadeblood interested in naval history, but nobody really notices.

She makes it through the trials without much trouble, and is later claimed by a massive spider lusus. The drones construct her hive on a towering cliffside, with enough space in its empty halls for an entire dragon’s hoard. She has one singular neighbor, and a handful of friends.

One day she will hold a planet in the palm of her hand, command an army of ghosts to righteous oblivion, orchestrate the birth of a demigod, and make out with a girl called Terezi. One day she will rise and die again, and one day she will bring death to his knees.

And one day she will find a ship, a ball, and a set of dice. And she will find a journal; and within it, she will find a legacy.


End file.
